dlt-tui

A terminal viewer for automotive DLT (Diagnostic Log and Trace) files.

DLT logs usually live on machines you reach over SSH: test benches, HIL rigs, CI runners. The standard tooling (dlt-viewer) is a Qt desktop app, so in practice you end up copying files back to your workstation just to look at them. dlt-tui is the alternative I wanted: open the file where it is, filter down to the interesting part, and read it — all in the terminal, with vim-style keys.

What it does:

• Opens .dlt files, plus .dlt.gz and .dlt.zip without unpacking first
• Loads multiple files or whole directories, merged into one timestamp-ordered timeline (useful when a session is split across per-context files)
• Filters stack on top of each other: minimum log level, APP ID, CTX ID, and regex search over payloads
• Shows a hex dump of the raw payload for any message
• Streams live from a running dlt-daemon over TCP (--connect host:port)
• Exports the currently filtered view to a file
• Parses in a streaming fashion, so large files start displaying before they finish loading

It deliberately does less than dlt-viewer — no ECU configuration, no message injection, no plugins (yet). It's for reading logs, and it tries to be very good at that.

Install

Homebrew (macOS / Linux):

brew install tkmsikd/tap/dlt-tui

Prebuilt binaries for Linux (x86_64 / aarch64, including static musl builds), macOS, and Windows are on the releases page. The musl builds run on any distro with no dependencies:

curl -L https://github.com/tkmsikd/dlt-tui/releases/latest/download/dlt-tui-x86_64-unknown-linux-musl.tar.gz | tar xz
./dlt-tui

With a Rust toolchain (1.88+): cargo install dlt-tui, or clone and cargo build --release.

Usage

dlt-tui                                  # file explorer in the current directory
dlt-tui /var/log/dlt/                    # ... or a specific directory
dlt-tui boot.dlt session.dlt.gz          # open files as one merged timeline
dlt-tui --connect localhost:3490         # stream from a running dlt-daemon
dlt-tui -- -capture.dlt                  # use -- for paths beginning with '-'

For an Android IVI target, forward the daemon port first:

adb forward tcp:3490 tcp:3490
dlt-tui --connect localhost:3490

A typical triage session: press l W Enter to hide everything below warnings, a DIAG Enter to narrow to one application, then / with a regex to find the message you're after, and Enter on it for the hex dump. C clears all filters. S saves the current filter stack to .dlt-tui.toml so you can reload it with L next time.

Keybindings

File Explorer

Log Viewer

Log Detail

Paging and jump keys (Ctrl+f/b/d/u, g, G) work in the detail view too. In any filter input, Enter applies and Esc cancels the input — an already-active filter stays as it was.

Notes

• TCP mode (--connect) and file or directory paths are mutually exclusive.
• Files larger than 500 MB are rejected (the limit applies after decompression as a zip-bomb guard).
• Parsed messages remain in memory for filtering and navigation; binary-heavy or compressed logs can require several times their on-disk size in RAM.
• .zip archives: only the first file entry is read; directory entries are skipped. Zip one .dlt per archive, or use .gz.
• E exports the filtered view to dlt_export_<timestamp>.txt in the current working directory.
• Payload text is sanitized before rendering, so logs containing escape sequences can't mess with your terminal.

Planned

Tracked as issues: bookmarking and annotation, DLT lifecycle/session tracking, and pluggable payload decoders (SOME/IP, UDS).

Contributing

Issues and PRs welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md. cargo test runs the whole suite; you can generate sample.dlt for manual testing with cargo test --test generate_sample_dlt -- --ignored --nocapture.

License

MIT